We're supposed to fall for this

[Shawnee123]

Federal deficit falls to smallest level in 4 years
Decline seen helped by higher tax revenues
Updated: 1 hour, 26 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The federal budget deficit, helped by a gusher of tax revenues, fell to $247.7 billion in 2006, the smallest amount of red ink in four years.
The deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was 22.3 percent lower than the $318.7 billion imbalance for 2005, handing President Bush an economic bragging point as Republicans go into the final four weeks of a battle for control of Congress.
Bush called the 2006 outcome a “dramatic reduction” in the deficit which allowed him to fulfill his 2004 campaign pledge of cutting the deficit in half earlier than his original 2009 target date.


“These numbers show that we have now achieved our goal of cutting the federal deficit in half and we’ve done it three years ahead of schedule,” Bush told reporters at a Rose Garden news conference. “The budget numbers are proof that pro-growth economic policies work.”

The pledge to cut the deficit in half was based on the administration’s forecast that the 2004 deficit would hit $521 billion, a figure that proved to be too pessimistic by more than $100 billion. However, the administration has continued to use the forecast number as its benchmark for deficit reduction.

Bush said he would continue to urge Congress to make permanent his first-term tax cuts, all of which are due to expire by the end of 2010.

Republicans are hoping to appeal to voters in the upcoming election as the party that champions tax cuts while casting Democrats, who contend that those tax cuts primarily benefited the wealthy, as the party which would increase taxes.

“The fact that some are trumpeting this year’s deficit number as good news shows just how far we’ve fallen. Our budget picture is extremely serious by any measure,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the deficit for the current budget year will rise to $286 billion. Over the next decade, the CBO forecasts that the deficit will total $1.76 trillion.

Extending the Bush tax cuts, which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, would add another $2.2 trillion to the deficit through 2016, the CBO estimates.

The 2006 deficit was the smallest deficit since a $159 billion imbalance in 2002, a shortfall that came after four straight years of budget surpluses, the longest stretch that the government had finished with surpluses in seven decades.

Yeppers, let's hear it for Jr. and the "party of fiscal responsibility" who managed in a mere two years to slurp up the surplus created under the evil Democratic Clinton administration.

Take a look at what is happening to State taxes, as a result of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and very expensive war. State taxes have gone up! The tax burden is merely being shifted to the state level. But don't tell anyone. It'll be our little dirty secret, OK?

[richlevy]

Well, if we want to compare Clinton and Bush, we have to be sure that the calculations are the same. I don't know if the method being used has changed, although it is possible. In general though, both Bushes, Clinton, and most other presidents have been lying based on the standards we use for corporations.

What's the real federal deficit?

The federal government keeps two sets of books.

The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.

The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

Congress has written its own accounting rules — which would be illegal for a corporation to use because they ignore important costs such as the growing expense of retirement benefits for civil servants and military personnel.
Last year, the audited statement produced by the accountants said the government ran a deficit equal to $6,700 for every American household. The number given to the public put the deficit at $2,800 per household.

A growing number of Congress members and accounting experts say it's time for Congress to start using the audited financial statement when it makes budget decisions. They say accurate accounting would force Congress to show more restraint before approving popular measures to boost spending or cut taxes.

“We're a bottom-line culture, and we've been hiding the bottom line from the American people,” says Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., a former investment banker. “It's not fair to them, and it's delusional on our part.”
The House of Representatives supported Cooper's proposal this year to ask the president to include the audited numbers in his budgets, but the Senate did not consider the measure.

I think we've pretty much reached consensus here that Congress consists of lame duck morons who will do anything to keep their jobs, including ducking real issues.

[headsplice]

Originally Posted by richlevy

I think we've pretty much reached consensus here that Congress consists of lame duck morons who will do anything to keep their jobs, including ducking real issues.

Ummm...they're politicians...
*rummagerumage*
<to self>Where's that blinking Obvious tag when I need it?</to self>